When you take meds every day for years. It’s easy to forget why you take them. A week off my ADHD meds and I was an unmotivated and disorganized mess. A week off my anxiety meds and I started freaking out over nothing. Back on my meds now and the best I can say is that I’m “Normal”, whatever that means :).

Anyways, back to business. After watching some K-On and Sound! Euphonium, and playing BanG Dream! on iPhone, it’s urged me to go back into music. So this week I’m focusing on music. So I dropped off my electric guitar in for maintenance yesterday. Should be back today.

I’m seriously considering picking up an acoustic when I’m there. I like the sound, the simplicity (no amp or pedals required), and I like the extra layer of difficulty in pressing down on the strings, which will only improve my electric guitar performance. It’s also pretty cheap compared to what I put in for the electric.

The downside? Well, I haven’t practiced on my electric in over five years, and nearly sold it a few months ago. Now I’m thinking of an additional guitar? Where will I put it? Will it collect dust for another five years?

At the same time, one of the reasons I’ve been discouraged from playing the electric for the last five years is primarily the setup. Purchasing it was a great idea at the time, but as I had less and less time to do stuff at home, I realized sometimes I just want to pick up something and play without adjusting knobs and dials. I also just want the simple sound of the strings, without having it amplified/modified by the amp. My tastes have also changed, I’m less into rock as I used to be and more into classic country, blues, and folk-style music.

So it makes sense to get an acoustic. I wouldn’t dare trade in my electric however. It’s a beautiful instrument, and even the guy at the guitar shop suggested that when I nearly sold it a few months ago, it would have been a great loss since it’s a well-made Fender Stratocaster.

They also brought about taking lessons. This sounds interesting. Having to take lessons is much more motivating for me than just saying “Hmm, should I play a YouTube training video today? Nah I’ll play Star Wars Battlefront II instead”.

I’ve also been weighing in getting a keyboard for years now. But that’s primarily an issue of space. I literally have no place to put it. An acoustic guitar is portable, a keyboard…not so much. So that’s a thought for another day.

So there you have it, another hobby to add to the list of hobbies I already have. It’s an ADD thing (so says my doctor), but at this stage in my life, I learned not to fight it, but just live with it.

Which brings me to another point. Balancing hobbies and activities during my time off. While I was unmedicated yesterday I ran into overwhelming anxiety issues with having too many things to do and not sure where to even start.

Last week, I was determined to focus on one activity at a time, and this week it’s somewhat the same. However, I’m not going to be as strict in my approach, since it makes my hobbies becomes a chore.

Still, I like my lists. Here’s what I’d like to do this week:

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TV/Anime

• K-ON! – Finished up Sound! Euphonium last week and now on K-On. I’m only on episode 4, but I’m enjoying it. It’s a good comedy, though a bit too Shoujo for my tastes. I’m still interested in it though.
• Demon Slayer: Kimitsu no Yaiba – I love the art direction in this, the music, and the storyline so far. It can be a bit dark however, so it’s not something I can watch entirely in one sitting.
• Stranger Things – I’d like to at least watch one episode this week. Enjoying Season 3 so far.
• Formula 1: Drive to Survive – This is one I’ve been watching off and on Netflix. I plan to finish this in the next day or two. A great behind-the-scenes look at the last season of Formula 1 and brings the drivers and the teams behind the drivers into a greater perspective that you don’t see during the race.

Gaming

• Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch) – I’m about 12 hours into it. I try to put in at least an hour each day. Basically run through the school grounds and put in a battle or two to level up my class. But it’s not really something I can play for hours on end in one sitting.
• Deemo (iOS)– Picked this up again. They added a lot of new songs and features since I last played. Going to try to get through all the new songs at least once.
• Rise of the Tomb Raider (PS4)- I nearly forgot about this game until this morning while trying to decide on what to play next on the PS4. When I played last month, I was about 1/3 into the game, but I’m enjoying it a lot so far.
• iRacing (PC)- Since I’ve been watching Formula 1 on Netflix, it’s got me thinking about doing some online racing. I had a lot of fun with this last year, and it feels more like a serious simulation than a simple game. Works great on my wheel and VR headset too…though I’ll need to do some reconfiguring on my VR Headset which I’m too lazy to do at the moment.

Hobbies

• Practice on my guitar – Whether or not I get an acoustic, I’ll be practicing guitar this week. Already queued up some videos on YouTube to practice along with.
• Study Japanese -I’d like to spend maybe an hour this week catching up on my vocab list.

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Also to add, visited Victoria, BC last week. Had a lot of fun there. It was nice to take a break from sitting around the house all day and to clear my mind up a bit. Though next year I might settle for somewhere a bit closer to home.